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This study examines the effects of incentive compensation and guanxi, a type of informal personal relationship between people, on the objectivity of Chinese internal auditors. Given that the objectivity of internal auditors is essential for promoting financial reporting quality, it is important to investigate the effectiveness of internal audit functions, especially in emerging markets where the corporate governance mechanisms designed to promote objectivity are less mature.

The research employs a 2 × 2 between participants experiment with 116 graduate accounting student participants.

After controlling for internal auditors’ ethicality, we find that close-guanxi between management and internal auditors and incentive compensation in the form of bonuses based upon meeting earnings targets both have the capacity to impair the objectivity of Chinese internal auditors. Participants were more tolerant of management’s attempts to manage earnings when there was close guanxi or bonus compensation. Further, compensation structure only influenced internal auditors’ support of management when guanxi was distant, but when there was close guanxi between internal auditors and management, internal auditors were unlikely to challenge management regardless of the compensation structure.

The purpose of this paper is to address theory development in the context of Russia, where insights holding potential to advance knowledge sharing theory are ubiquitous. Drawing on contextual evidence, the paper aims to advance a theoretical framework for the study of knowledge sharing, an activity essential for the organizational change and development required for building competitiveness. It also aims to outline research needs that might both provide insight in Russia and also enrich extant theory originally developed in the West.

The paper presents a review of the theory of planned behavior, its application to knowledge sharing, and the cultural environment suggest modifications that contextualize the theory for studying knowledge sharing in Russia and in other contexts.

Propositions based on contextual considerations in Russia are advanced as a means of modifying and augmenting the theory of planned behavior to better address knowledge sharing more comprehensively across contexts.

The paper provides suggestions for testing the propositions, and offers additional research directions and considerations that might guide inquiry into knowledge sharing.

Knowledge hoarding is a concern of all managers, particularly in Russia. The research enabled by the efforts here might improve practice by identifying impediments to knowledge sharing, and inform successful intervention to improve the likelihood of accomplishing organizational initiatives in both Russian firms and in foreign entities operating in Russia.

The paper emphasizes the value of theoretical approaches that cross‐fertilize emic and etic perspectives on theory development by using contextual enhancement of the theory of planned behavior through inclusion of cultural values and interpersonal behaviors related to knowledge sharing/hoarding that are pervasive in Russia. This kind of double‐loop theorizing is a means of leveraging management research across contexts. Based on the refined and extended theory of planned behavior, a research agenda for studying knowledge sharing is offered that describes methodological and content considerations that might benefit management theory in Russia and in the West.

The concept of work discussion groups, originating with Michael Balint, is explained. The contribution of such groups to substance misuse services is explained and three examples given.

In spite of the important contributions of franchising to many economies, it remains unclear whether it truly provides a scope for entrepreneurial tendencies to flourish amongst franchisees. The purpose of this paper is to examine the debate surrounding the franchisee as an entrepreneur from the perspectives of the main contributors within the UK franchising sector, franchisors and franchisees, by analysing their entrepreneurial tendencies and the franchisee selection process.

The paper is based on an empirical study using a focus group and a survey approach.

The findings from this study demonstrate that franchisees have similar levels of entrepreneurial tendencies to franchisors. The results further indicate that franchisors appear to value entrepreneurial personalities within their franchised outlets, as demonstrated by their franchisee selection process.

By providing an indication of the extent of the franchisee’s entrepreneurial tendencies, this study expatiates on major arguments in the franchising and entrepreneurship literature, which are also profound amongst practitioners in the fields of franchising and entrepreneurship.

The concept of fit is central to theories in both the fields of strategic management and organizational behavior. It is our contention that many key questions in the field of entrepreneurship might also be successfully addressed through a fit approach. For instance, why do entrepreneurs often make poor managers? And why must founders often be replaced by professional managers as their firms grow? The idea of misfit is implicit in both of these questions. A fit perspective may also be beneficial in better understanding specific entrepreneurial behaviors. For example, why does one entrepreneur start and grow multiple businesses over his or her career (serial) while another might be content with starting only one business (novice)? or Why does one entrepreneur continually strive to grow his or her firm while another is content to arrest development (lifestyle) at a certain level? All of these questions, and obviously many more, can be viewed and examined as questions of fit.

In addition to proposing an integrated conceptualization of mail survey response behavior, this article presents an empirical study which examines the potential of source and appeal variations on response rate, response speed, and response completeness. The findings of this empirical study are presented and compared to a similar study for the purpose of validating source and appeal effects on mail survey response and the conceptual framework. The results, not totally in agreement with earlier findings, generally lend support for the untapped potential of source and appeal in influencing mail survey response behavior. There is also statistical justification for two of the six motivators comprising the proposed conceptual framework.

The purpose of this paper is to study the bonding properties of Larch with water‐based polymer isocynate (WPI) adhesive to provide theoretical instruction for practical production of Larch glued laminated timber with WPI adhesive.

This study adopted Japanese JIS K6806 standard to test bonding properties of Larch with WPI adhesive. Scanning electron microscope was used to observe morphography of Larch surface. Micro photos were adopted to show the penetration of WPI adhesive on the radial and tangential surfaces of Larch.

There was significant difference in bonding strength between Larch radial and tangential glue‐blocks glued with WPI adhesive. Dry compressing shear strength of Larch radial glue‐block bonded with WPI adhesive was 1.41 times that of Larch tangential glue‐block bonded with WPI adhesive in normal conditions. Wood failure showed that the difference between Larch radial and tangential glue‐block was caused by wood structure of Larch itself.

The research conclusion that the dry compressing shear strength of Larch radial glue‐block bonded with WPI adhesive was bigger than that of Larch tangential glue‐block bonded in normal conditions. These would be changed if other adhesives were adopted to glue Larch wood.

The conclusion developed in this study provided a practical production instruction for Larch glued laminated timber with WPI adhesive. In order to obtain better bonding properties during the production of Larch glued laminated wood, Larch wood should be sawn into radial boards rather than tangential boards in order to obtain maximum bonding strength of Larch wood.

The paper shows that there was significant difference in bonding strength between Larch radial and tangential glue‐bonded blocks with WPI adhesive. Dry compressing shear strength of Larch radial glue‐block bonded with WPI adhesive was 1.41 times that of Larch tangential glue‐block bonded with WPI adhesive in normal conditions.